Mega Millions $648 Million Jackpot Run Does a “Lotto” Good for Connecticut

December 19, 2013 -- The Mega Millions® jackpot run that began on October 2, 2013, officially came to an end Tuesday night when two jackpot winning tickets were sold; one in California and one in Georgia. Once all results were tallied, the final jackpot amount was a jaw-dropping $648 million, just shy of the Mega Millions record of $656 million, set on March 30, 2012.

"It was very exciting and our players experienced the thrill of a big run right before the holidays," said Anne Noble, President and CEO for the CT Lottery. "While the Mega Millions jackpot winning ticket was not sold in Connecticut, profits raised from the jackpot run still made Connecticut’s citizens a winner because the profits from the sale of Lottery tickets are delivered to the General Fund and support good causes throughout Connecticut.”

For the time period October 2 through December 17, 2013, the CT Lottery generated $13,952,918 in Mega Million sales. About 36 cents of every $1.00 of Mega Millions sales goes to the General Fund. For this Mega Millions jackpot run about $5.02 million was generated for the General Fund.

The winning Mega Millions numbers drawn on December 17, 2013 were 8-14-17-20-39 with Mega Ball 7. The Megaplier® was 4. In total, 259,363 winning Mega Millions tickets were sold in Connecticut for that date, with prizes ranging from $1 to $5,000.

Players have 180 days from the date of drawing to claim a winning ticket. Winning tickets for the December 17, 2013 Mega Millions drawing expire on June 15, 2014.

In fiscal year 2013, players won a record $699 million in prize money. At the same time the CT Lottery provided a record $312.1 million to support the valuable services and programs funded by the state’s General Fund including public health, libraries, public safety, education and more. CT’s Mega Millions sales returned $9.15 million to the General Fund in fiscal year 2013.